Lees

Thank you for the Christmas card! One day Iíll be able to place getting
cards out on my list of things to do. Right now thereís just no room. We
just got back from a two week trek in
Thailand
. We took the girls and had ourselves a very memorable experience.
We rode elephants, ferries, long tail boats, speed boats, mopeds, jeeps, big
planes, little planes, tuk tuks, funny trucks that I donít know the name of,
and finally tour vans. We haggled prices down with the many vendors, we
visited many Wats (Buddhist temples), were blessed by a Buddhist monk, got a
number of foot massages (itís a big thing there), snorkeled in the PeePee
Islands (Rod scuba dived), played on the Beach where the movie ďBeachĒ was
filmed, climbed a monster rock wall, survived crossing the streets of Chang Mai,
survived driving a moped on the streets of the island of Kosamui, ate at
McDonalds, Starbucks and Subway in Chang Mai, had a pizza at a German restaurant
prepared and served by the Thai, visited a number of the hill tribes in the
Golden Triangle including the Long Neck tribe (they wear rings on their necks to
increase the length of their necks), visited the country of Laos, bought an
opium pipe in Laos thinking it was either a tea kettle or a vase, and
finally just saw so many amazing things. Rod is planning on going back
this summer with his brother to visit
Cambodia
. The girls and I are passing. Weíre going to go to
Disneyland
instead.

I Love You

Melody

(October 3, 2005)

Hey Alexis,

All is well here. The girls are doing great. Five more weeks of school and
their off for a month. It's the "modified year round" schedule their
schools' keep. I can't wait.

Kara's busy with her horse. It's not really her horse, we're leasing this
horse. We sold hers. We're not ready to buy the horse she needs yet. It will be
pretty expensive. Hannah started playing the flute. She's having some difficulty
with it, but it's coming, slowly. She also is continuing her Art classes as well
as taking gymnastics with Alleigh and Victoria. Alleigh is now a green belt in
Karate; quite the cute little thing when throwing all the fancy moves. Victoria
is busy with gymnastics and plain having fun. All three little ones are still in
Girl Scouts and loving it. I'm their leader and would like to quit, but can't as
long as their having fun. However, I may have to soon as I have applied to U of
C, Sacramento for Graduate School. I hope to get into the Department of
Counseling Education. We'll see.

Rod is busy with work, Raiders (Football Season is upon us) and flying his
plane. Soon he'll be licensed to fly in the clouds and he says then we will be
able to fly to Chicago. How fun would that be? Melody says, no way Jose. I can
barely handle flying from Sacramento to San Jose in his plane without feeling
like I could die at any moment. I afraid of heights and boy does that plane get
high. And it's little; only four seats. He would like to get one with six seats,
but I don't think that will be much bigger. Maybe I'll get over it one day.
We'll see.

I'm heading to Hawaii on Nov. 2nd for a few days. No kids, no husband. My
girlfriend and I are going to bring our sewing machines and sew. We'll sew all
night and sleep in the sun all day. Sounds like a relaxing time, huh.

We have no definite plans to come into Chicago, but we're throwing around
Thanksgiving. It just depends on flight costs, which aren't looking so good
right now.